Attraction to transgender people

Sexual attraction to transgender people has been the subject of scientific study and social commentary.

A 2019 study asked 958 online participants, mostly young adults in Canada and the United States, which gender identities they would be interested in dating.

In the sample, 3.3% of heterosexual men, 1.8% of heterosexual women, 11.5% of gay men, 28.8% of lesbian women, and 51.7% of bisexual, queer, and non-binary people (grouped together for analysis) reported they would be interested in dating a transgender person, and the remainder were not interested.

[1][2] In their sociological study, Martin S. Weinberg and Colin J. Williams interviewed 26 men sexually interested in trans women (MSTW).

[3]: 381 As part of HIV prevention research in 2004, Operario et al. interviewed 46 men in the San Francisco area who had sex with transgender women, but found "no consistent patterns between how men described their sexual orientation identity versus their sexual behavior and attraction to transgender women".

The study authors concluded that "The interest in trans women appears to be a distinct sexual interest separate from heterosexual men's attraction to women for the majority of men, but there is a substantial minority who may experience it as their sexual orientation.

[6] In 2015, The Palgrave Handbook of the Psychology of Sexuality and Gender described a lack of research exploring others' attraction to trans men or nonbinary FTM persons.

[9] Erotic materials created for people attracted to trans men have become more visible, especially due to pornographic actor Buck Angel.

[10] Trans activist Jamison Green writes that cisgender gay men who are partnered with trans men "are often surprised to find that a penis is not what defines a man, that the lack of a penis does not mean a lack of masculinity, manliness, or male sexuality".

[15][13] Transgender people often use the term in a pejorative sense, because they consider chasers to value them for their trans status alone, rather than being attracted to them as a person.

[18] Sociologist Avery Tompkins of Transylvania University in Kentucky argued in an article in the Journal of Homosexuality that sex-positive trans politics cannot emerge if terms such as "tranny chaser" inform discussion of attraction to transgender people.